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Friday, May 25, 2018

Top 5 Things You Can do with Bluetooth and Your Roland Piano

Modern Roland digital pianos are packed full of features that, even 5 years ago, we couldn't have imagined would be possible. Roland's SuperNATURAL piano modeling technology has expanded the expressive capabilities of these instruments to make them respond as organically as an acoustic piano. However, with onboard Bluetooth technology (LX-17, LX-7, HP-605, HP-603, HP601, FP-30, FP-60, and FP-90), the performance, creative, and learning potential of these instruments is even greater.

Things You Can Do With Your Roland Piano's Bluetooth

1. Send music wirelessly through the speaker system of your piano.

For select models (LX-17, LX-7, HP-605, HP-603, HP-601, and FP-60/90), you can use the piano as a home entertainment system, benefiting from the rich speaker systems found on these instruments. This is also a great feature for playing along with the music you know and love, or practicing over top of practice tracks.

2. Customize the sound of your piano and add new features.

Use Roland's free apps, like their Piano Designer app, to adjust the fine elements of the piano tone, just as a piano technician would do for an acoustic piano. You can use any Android or iOs device to select from several pre-sets for each model piano, or dive into the designer to adjust such parameters as the Lid Position, Hammer Noise, String Resonance, Duplex Scale, Temperament, and many more. The changes you make are heard on the fly, and you can save your preferred adjustments within the app or directly to the piano.

The beauty of Roland's approach is that, by separating the hardware from the software, your piano can grow and expand as new software is developed or updated. Roland's Piano Partner 2 app has many cool features, including the ability to play a variety of auto-accompaniment rhythm styles, letting you sound like a full band without having to understand complex chord theory.

3. Record to apps such as Garage Band and Finale.

You can use the Bluetooth MIDI connection to send data back and forth between the piano and the software of your choice to lay down multi-track recordings and generate sheet music for your compositions. In fact, this feature gives you the ability to use other apps compatible with SoundFont to add to the sounds your piano is capable of controlling.

4. Learn to play the piano.

Wondering if you could actually learn to play the piano? Don't worry. Bluetooth makes it an easy, interactive experience by using the devices you already know (your phones/tablets/computers) to control your new instrument so you can focus on playing.

There are many learning apps and companies pushing the boundaires in this space. For example, a company called JoyTunes has several apps, including Piano Dust Buster, Piano Maestro, and Simply Piano, all aimed at different age brackets to help introduce the fundamentals of piano playing and provide instant feedback. Other companies like Piano Marvel are also creating programs that can take you from being an absolute beginner through advanced classical literature and include years of pre-set lessons.

5. Read Digital Sheet Music

If you want, you can load up your old sheet music into apps like PiaScore and ditch the old paper copies. You can even set up the left two pedals to turn pages so your hands never leave the instrument. Easy, right!?

Want to experience all this in person?

Give us a call or stop by our Poplar showroom for a free test-drive of this great technology! Amro Music has the largest selection of school band instruments, orchestra instruments, pianos, organs, print music, and music accessories in the Mid-South. Call us for details!